1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to navigation system, method, and program for an automotive vehicle, particularly, relates to navigation system, method, and program therefor in which an object of a search is , with a degree of familiarity of a user (or each user) of the vehicle with a predetermined region, so-called, a plenty knowledge of the predetermined region that the user has can sufficiently be reflected on the search for the object.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Japanese Patent Application First Publication No. Heisei 11-213289 published on Aug. 6, 1999 exemplifies a previously proposed navigation system utilizing a degree of familiarity of a user with a particular region, so-called, a plenty knowledge of the particular region that the user has. In the previously proposed navigation system, a wide-area road network is used to search for an object in a case where the user has no knowledge of the particular region and a detailed road network is used to search the object in a case where the user has a good knowledge of the particular region, thus the search being carried out in accordance with the degree of familiarity with the region that the user has. Consequently, any one of the roads having the degree of detail in accordance with the road knowledge of the user is searched and produced to the user.
The previously proposed navigation system determines whether the user knows an indication point that the user has specified depending upon such an information that whether the indication point that the user has specified is a user""s house, a user""s place of employment, or a surrounding to a location that the user has specified or whether the indication point is on a road where a number of times the vehicle has passed therethrough has reached to a predetermined value or more within a predetermined interval of time or within a predetermined traveled distance, acknowledges the degree of familiarity of the user according to this determination and carries out the search of the route of travel in accordance with the acknowledged degree of familiarity of the user.
However, in a case where the degree of familiarity of the user by two determination methods described above is acknowledged, it is necessary for the user to sequentially input and set the information on a location that the user is familiar with and this gives a large burden to the user in a case where the former method is used. On the other hand, in the case of the latter method, although the degree of familiarity of the user can automatically be calculated, the degree of familiarity of the user can be determined from a positional relationship between each particular road segment and the indication point. Hence, although, in the latter determination method, it can be acknowledged that the user is familiar with the road described above, it is not proper to acknowledge that the user is familiar with the region including the road described above.
For example, in a given region in which there are four road segments: (1) a first road segment (interval) which runs from a point of place A to a point of place M via intersections C, E, and I; (2) a second road segment which runs from a point of place B to a point of place K via intersections C and G; (3) a third road segment which runs from a point of place D to a point of place L via intersections E and H; and (4) a fourth road segment which runs from a point of place F to a point of place J via intersections G, H, and I.
Then, suppose that the user has hardly passed through the third road segment but has passed through the first, second, and fourth road segments several number of times. This user has a good knowledge of most roads with the region and the previously proposed navigation system should acknowledge that the degree of familiarity on the region is high (the user has good knowledge of this region). However, the previously proposed navigation system would acknowledge that the degree of familiarity with this region is low when the user specifies a point of place P, point of place P being located along or near a road segment between intersection H and point of place L of the third road segment and would search for the route of travel using the wide-area road network, determining that the degree of familiarity is low.
It is, hence, an object of the present invention to provide navigation system, method, and program for an automotive vehicle which are capable of accurately acknowledging the degree of familiarity of a user of the vehicle with each of predetermined regions and which are capable of sufficiently reflecting the user""s degree of familiarity therewith on a search of an object.
The above-described object can be achieved by providing navigation system for an automotive vehicle, comprising: a storing section that stores therein a travel history of the vehicle which is made correspondent with a road map information; a calculating section that calculates a degree of familiarity with one of predetermined regions for each of the predetermined regions in the road map information on the basis of the travel history of the vehicle and its corresponding road map information; and an information producing section that produces the road map information in accordance with the degree of familiarity with the one of the predetermined regions calculated by the calculating section.
The above-described object can also be achieved by providing a navigation system for an automotive vehicle, comprising: a storing section that stores therein a travel history of the vehicle for each of users of the vehicle which is made correspondent with a road map information; a calculating section that calculates a degree of familiarity of one of the users with one of predetermined regions for each of the predetermined regions in the road map information on the basis of the travel history of the one of the users of the vehicle and its corresponding road map information; and an information producing section that produces the road map information in accordance with the degree of familiarity of the one of the users of the vehicle with the one of the predetermined regions calculated by the calculating section.
The above-described object can also be achieved by providing a navigation method for an automotive vehicle, comprising: storing a travel history of the vehicle which is made correspondent with a road map information; calculating a degree of familiarity with one of predetermined regions for each of the predetermined regions in the road map information on the basis of the travel history of the vehicle and its corresponding road map information; and producing the road map information in accordance with the degree of familiarity with the one of the predetermined regions calculated by the calculating section.
The above-described object can also be achieved by providing a navigation program for an automotive vehicle, comprising: a storing function to store a travel history of the vehicle which is made correspondent with a road map information; a calculating function to calculate a degree of familiarity with one of predetermined regions for each of the predetermined regions in the road map information on the basis of the travel history of the vehicle and its corresponding road map information; and an information producing function to produce the road map information in accordance with the degree of familiarity with the one of the predetermined regions calculated by the calculating section.
This summary of the invention does not necessarily describe all necessary features so that the invention may also be a sub-combination of these described features.